A Canoga Park man reached a settlement with the Department of Water and Power to resolve a lawsuit he filed this year after the utility refused to restore service unless he paid his landlord\u2019s massive debt, the man\u2019s attorneys announced Thursday.<\/p>\n
In May, Bryan James\u2019 attorneys filed court papers with the Los Angeles Superior Court, in which he stated he moved into a guest house on Community Street in 2018. His landlord became $20,000 delinquent on her DWP bill and all of James\u2019 services were cut last October, his court papers state.<\/p>\n
A DWP spokeswoman did not provide a response to the comments by the attorneys for the plaintiff. There was no response from the City Attorney\u2019s Office to an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n
Attorneys from the Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles represented James. On Thursday, the public interest law office announced it had reached a \u201csignificant settlement\u201d with DWP, ending the utility\u2019s unlawful practice of forcing tenants to pay their landlord\u2019s delinquent bills before being allowed to open accounts in their names.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing months without water and power \u2014 through no fault of my own \u2014 was incredibly difficult. Access to utilities is a basic human right, and being denied that was dehumanizing,\u201d James said in a statement. \u201cI\u2019m relieved that DWP is correcting this injustice, and even more relieved that others will be spared from going through what I endured.\u201d<\/p>\n
James used a trash can as a restroom and traveled to his mother\u2019s Bakersfield home just to take a shower. When it was cold, he used four blankets and wore two knit caps to try to get warm, but many times those measures were insufficient, according to his court papers.<\/p>\n
James was not allowed to make the service transfer and had been without water, electricity and heat ever since, his court papers stated.<\/p>\n
DWP employees have referred to the \u201cbenefit of service\u201d policy, asserting that because James got the benefit of the utility service, he must pay for it, according to James\u2019 court papers.<\/p>\n
In 1993, DWP settled a lawsuit on the same issue, agreeing to end its benefit of service policy and to allow tenants to obtain utility services without paying their landlords\u2019 delinquent bills, according to James\u2019 court papers. However, sometime between 1993 and 2025, the DWP re-implemented its benefit of service policy, James\u2019 court papers alleged.<\/p>\n
As part of the settlement, DWP is expected to update its internal manuals and training materials to ensure compliance with state law. The utility will train customer service representatives, supervisors, and all other relevant staff to implement the policy change properly.<\/p>\n
Additionally, DWP will post a notice on its website for two years, informing tenants of their rights and how to seek refunds. Additionally, the utility will include clear language in all future disconnection notices alerting tenants of their right to open accounts without paying their landlord\u2019s past-due bills.<\/p>\n
DWP is expected to issue refunds to tenants who, on or after May 5, 2021, were forced to pay their landlords\u2019 debt to obtain service.<\/p>\n
Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles encouraged tenants who were forced to pay their landlord\u2019s utility debt, or denied service by DWP, to call 866-559-1012 for assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis settlement makes clear what the law has always required: tenants are not responsible for their landlords\u2019 utility bills,\u201d Dehsong Matheu, a Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles attorney, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cEqually important, it compels LADWP to reform its practices, train its staff, and notify tenants of their rights so that no one else is subjected to this unlawful and harmful policy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Canoga Park man reached a settlement with the Department of Water and Power to resolve a lawsuit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[23201,48,52,51,47,50,49,23202,23203,4747,5675],"class_list":{"0":"post-31876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-fought","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","14":"tag-los-angeles-news","15":"tag-reaches","16":"tag-restore","17":"tag-service","18":"tag-settlement"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}